Linda Ronstadt – Hasten Down The Wind (1976)

“My introduction into Linda’s world. Peter Asher had seen me play with Carole King at UCLA. He wanted me to go out on the road with Linda, but first he wanted me to play on her record.

“A lot of times of times when you’re cutting a record, especially when you’re overdubbing, you want to be in the same room with the producer; you don’t want to be in some other room and going through the talkback mic and everything; you want to hear it together and have some interaction.

“So I’m in there with Peter, and we’re working on a song, and while I’m playing I got the distinct feeling that there was somebody else in the room. I looked under the console, and there was Linda, covered up in a blanket. ‘Oh, hi!’ she said. It was so cute.

“Working with Peter was interesting. He’s very focused on his artists, and he was very focused on the band that came with Linda – Andrew Gold, Kenny Edwards, Mike Botts, all three of them rest in peace. Also there was Brock Walsh and Dan Dugmore – I had a great guitar relationship with Dan.

"I remember, before I started playing with Linda, I went by the studio to drop something off to Kenny. J.D. Souther was there – it was his record they were doing – and when he saw me, he was like, ‘Waddy! What are you doing here? Hey, you gotta play on this record.’

“I said that I’d love to, but then I saw Peter Asher kind of biting his lip and looking at me like, ‘Who the fuck is this? Who’s this outsider?’ Being British, he’s not the most touchy-feely person, at least he wasn’t at that time. So he kind of begrudgingly said, ‘OK, he can play on it.’

“The song was Simple Man, Simple Dream. I’d never heard it before, but I set up my guitar with my volume pedal and my amp, and as soon as I heard J.D. sing that opening line, I knew what to do. My entrance is this little volume pedal sort of steel lick. I knew it would work. When I played it, I looked at Peter, who jumped up like, ‘Whoa! What was that?’ Right away, things got warmer and he let me into the circle, and we’ve been dear, dear friends since then.

“Actually, Peter was the guy who really showed me how easy it is to be nice to people in the studio and still get what you want out of them. His approach wasn’t regimented, like things were in the Wrecking Crew days. He was casual in terms of getting to the red light being on; once the red light was on, everybody had to be serious and get to work. But he was loose and very warm. He made you feel good about being there, which is such an important part of producing a record.”